New Jersey Environmental Justice Impact Statement Guidance

On April 17, 2023, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) published the Environmental Justice (EJ) Rule under New Jersey Administrative Code (N.J.A.C.) 7:1C. The EJ Rule is applicable to any major source facility, or other type of facility as defined in N.J.A.C. 7:1C-1.5, submitting a permit application to NJDEP for a new or expanded facility or renewing a major source permit for a facility which is located in an Overburdened Community (OBC) as determined by the state’s Environmental Justice Mapping, Assessment and Protection Tool (EJMAP). The requirements under the EJ Rule must be completed prior to NJDEP beginning its review of the submitted permit application or renewal.

What is an EJIS?

One of the most extensive requirements of the EJ Rule is the development of an Environmental Justice Impact Statement (EJIS) for the proposed permit action or renewal. The purpose of the EJIS is to provide the community with information related to the permit application, and how the project contributes to environmental and public health stressors in the OBC. In addition to outlining the EJIS requirements under N.J.A.C. 7:1C-3, NJDEP has published a guidance document to help applicants navigate the development of the EJIS. Upon submission and approval, EJIS documents will be posted publicly to NJDEP’s EJ website.

EJIS Requirements

While there is no mandatory format or outline for an EJIS, N.J.A.C. 7:1C-3.2 includes several topics that must be adequately covered in the final, published EJIS.  These topics include:

• An executive summary of the EJIS
• A detailed description of the facility’s municipal and neighborhood setting
• Descriptions of the facility’s current and proposed operations
• Evidence of satisfying any local EJ requirements or cumulative impact analysis requirements
• Information from the facility’s initial EJ screening (either obtained through EJMAP or provided by NJDEP after the permit application was submitted)
• Assessment of positive/negative impacts of the facility on each of the environmental and public health stressors identified as affected in the EJ screening process
• Public participation plans that include the proposed methods to notify the members of the OBC of the permit application and proposed public hearing location
• Demonstration that the applicant is not located in an OBC subject to adverse cumulative stressors and will avoid disproportionate impact by not creating adverse cumulative stressors. If this demonstration cannot be done, the applicant will be required to provide additional supplemental information.
• As applicable, demonstration that a new facility will serve compelling public interest in the OBC. Under N.J.A.C. 7:1C-5.3, compelling public interest is demonstrated when the new facility is primarily serving essential environmental, health, and safety (EHS) needs; is necessary to serve essential EHS needs; and there are no reasonable alternatives outside of the OBC to serve essential EHS needs of the OBC and its individuals.

Depending on the outcome of the applicant’s initial EJ screening, additional supplemental information may be required to be submitted with an EJIS in order to be considered complete. If the facility is located in an OBC that is subject to adverse cumulative stressors or is unable to demonstrate the project will avoid disproportionate impacts to the stressors, the supplemental information will be required to be submitted with the EJIS. N.J.A.C. 7:1C-3.3 provides a comprehensive list of the 14 required supplemental information components. Some examples of the data that will need to be either compiled from previous projects or developed for the EJIS include several types of site mapping, a traffic study, and a detailed compliance history.

EJIS Resources

Preparing an EJIS will require a lot of work and refinement to get to the final product. It is highly recommended that facilities which need to submit an EJIS make the development a collaborative process. This could include not only working with ALL4 and our past experiences with other EJISs, but also other third parties to assist with potential supplemental information, and even collaborating with NJDEP. NJDEP has been very responsive in providing feedback and comments on draft EJIS documents prior to finalization. Additionally, having support from teams outside of the applicant facility will help ensure the EJIS is easy for an outside reader to understand, which is a crucial element to the accessibility of an EJIS to the public community.

If you have questions or need assistance in developing an EJIS and complying with the EJ Rule, please contact Molly McHale at mollymchale@all4inc.com or 267.921.1050.

For more information about the EJ Rule and its other requirements, ALL4 has published these additional articles:

• New Jersey Environmental Justice Rule Public Participation and Implications
• Advancing Environmental Justice: New Jersey’s Approach to Addressing Cumulative Stressors
• New Jersey Environmental Justice Final Rule Effective April 17, 2023